Dumb stereotypes take heart out of boys' hopes

Portraying men as cads or wimps empowers no one and only increases bitter social division, writes Andrew Bock.

Riding on the back of his fine Arab or the Valiant Charger, the hard-drinking, hard-living, macho man still saves the day fairly regularly. But media that appeal to women are more likely to portray men as bungling, incompetent fall guys in the workplace and in relationships.

New male stereotypes have been prevalent in news, TV drama, films, articles and advertisements for more than a decade and, in a reversal of fortunes, men are now starting to protest.

John Marsden, the best-selling adolescents' fiction writer, and author of the non-fiction books Secret Men's Business and The Boy You Brought Home, said, "Teenage boys are among the most maligned group in our society ...

"The media portrays them as either drug-crazed, illiterate, unemployable, suicidal, failures at school, sex criminals or vandals. So adults tend to treat them more suspiciously, and that causes them [unconsciously] to become angry or frustrated or alienated."

The Advertising Standards Bureau, one of the few organisations that measures complaints about stereotypes in the media, reports a steady increase in the percentage of men (now more than a third) complaining about advertising, and their most frequent complaint is about sexual discrimination. A survey conducted for the bureau last year revealed that while 40 per cent of complainants thought women were portrayed offensively, an increasing 23 per cent thought men were portrayed offensively.

The Herald yesterday reported complaints about a now withdrawn Honda car advertisement that showed a man's car throwing itself off a cliff out of jealousy. But that ad did not draw as many sexual discrimination complaints as a recent Kolotex pantyhose billboard that showed a woman holding two naked Negro men on leashes. Writers have criticised ads that show women turned on by men with (recently purchased) bald chests and hairy heads. The ads that received most complaints in the bureau's survey and in focus groups, from men and women, were ads that portrayed men as "buffoons" or "idiots", according to the survey researcher, Dr Debora Harker.

Advertising is not, however, the primary source of maladjusted male stereotypes. In television, Marsden pointed to the stereotypes of men and boys that existed even in iconoclastic shows like The Simpsons: "The dumb beer-swilling father and the nasty-minded truant son, for example." Marsden criticised the stereotype of the bumbling male and the confident woman. "There are many shows that portray boys being incompetent or stupid in relation to girls. It's such a boring, tired old joke about boys. And I think it damages their confidence."

In The Secret Life of Us, female characters like Claudia Karvan's Alex tend to be more forthright in relationships, more morally right, and more organised than the often confused and defensive sensitive male characters like Evan. "I should feel guilty about feeling guilty," Evan said in one episode. In fashion magazines, wispy (and waspish) metrosexual male models perpetuate a passive, self-conscious image of men.

The disappointment that comes to women early in relationships, when "Mr Right Now" doesn't match up to dreams of "Mr Right", also seems to drive a lot of media images of men.

Popular sitcoms like Sex and the City show women avidly browsing for men, assessing them over coffee and, sooner or later, moving on out of disappointment. There are three (cardboard) male types in the show: rich "Mr Bigs"; nice, patient, sensitive guys; "toxic bachelors" and "himbos", with all manner of bad habits in bed.

Candace Bushnell said of the series spawned by her book: "It changed the way women look at themselves and the way they look at men. I see it as a subtle feminist tool, a stealth bomber, a secret feminist message."

Rebellious or indulgent post-feminist female attitudes are justified by citing the wicked, oppressive, patriarchal or unfaithful characters of men. In a recent episode of Dr Phil, an American midday chat show on Channel Nine, the good doctor dealt with a cheating man, a flirting man and a married man who had come out as a cross-dresser. Female partners cried and said how horrible their husbands had made them feel and Dr Phil came to their rescue by denouncing the men, on international TV, as irresponsible and dishonest cads - to the applause of the virtually all-female audience.

In the news, sex crimes are perpetrated mostly by men. In a latter day form of witch-hunting, the mere word of a woman, and the possible infidelity of a man, is enough to make scandalous headlines, whether for Shane Warne or Bill Clinton. In sitcoms, men are sometimes regaled for not wanting enough sex. In the media, men are charged with wanting too much sex.

The apotheosis of media that depicts women as heroes and men as villains is the Buffy, Angel, Charmed, and Alias genre of shows which, despite repeating a Hollywood formula for violence against the ugly, have attained feminist approval because the shows display women being powerful and often over evil men.

Articles in the print media can contain more prejudicial generalisations about men partly because women dominate the field of writing about relationships, and because in an article, unlike a drama, there is no dialogue and therefore less need to paint even half-real male characters.

Biases run many ways across the media, but an overriding bias in modern media seems to run away from positive images of men. Criticism of female stereotypes and what they implied about men's attitudes was an important platform of early feminism. It would be more than ironic if men were criticised for questioning media stereotypes about men and relationships.

The other option for men, and one they seem to prefer, is to change the channel or turn the page, and go to the relatively uncontested battles of sport.